Samsó, Julio

Suhayl International Journal for the History of the Exact and Natural Sciences in Islamic Civilisation

Revistes Catalanes amb Accés Obert

Reviews 183
Rashed’s Encyclopedia but I think that 
a version written by a single author 
would be extremely useful for general 
historians of science. Nobody is better 
qualified to write such a book than 
George Saliba. 
 
Julio Samsó  
 
 
David Juste, Les Alchandreana 
primitifs. Étude sur les plus anciens 
traités astrologiques latins d’origi-
ne arabe (Xe siècle). Brill’s Studies 
in Intellectual History Vol. 152. 
Brill’s Texts and Sources in 
Intellectual History Vol. 2. Leiden-
Boston, 2007. XVI + 726 pp + 6 
plates. 
 
In 1931, Josep Mª Millàs Vallicrosa 
published his Assaig d’història de les 
idees físiques i matemàtiques a la 
Catalunya Medieval which contained, 
among many other things, a critical 
edition of the “old corpus” (Kunitzsch) 
or “old collection” (Burnett) of Latin 
texts, based on Arabic sources, on the 
construction and use of the astrolabe, 
the astronomical quadrant, and a few 
other instruments. In 2004 I was 
invited to write a state of the art con-
cerning the collection and I carefully 
revised all the available sources, 
discovering, to my surprise, that they 
contained very few astrological 
materials. I have now found the 
answer to this intriguing puzzle in 
David Juste’s book which is, to the 
best of my knowledge, the most 
important documenttary contribution 
to the study of the early introduction 
of Arabic astronomy and astrology in 
Europe since Millàs Vallicrosa’s work. 
 Juste’s book contains a critical 
edition and very complete study of a 
series of eight astrological texts which 
share common prediction techniques: 
the data of the horoscope are calculat-
ed using numerological procedures 
(numerical values of the letters 
forming the name of the subject) and 
the prediction is based on isolated 
elements (the onomatomantic ascen-
dant, the planetary hours, the position 
of the planets in the triplicities or in 
the lunar mansions, etc.). This kind of 
very simplified astrology is represent-
ed in two other works written in the 
Iberian Peninsula during the Middle 
Ages: the Alfonsine Libro de las Cru-
zes and Raimundus Lullius’ Tractatus 
de nova astronomia. Both books re-
present the same tendency towards 
simplification as the Alchandreana 
collection, although they have very 
little in common with it. 
 The books contained are either 
anonymous or attributed to a 
mysterious writer called Alchandreus. 
Apart from him, the other authorities 
quoted are Alexander Macedo, Ascalu 
Hismaelita, Argafalau/ Arfarfau Cal-
deus and Aluaten Sarracenus. Quite 
convincingly, Juste establishes rela-
tions between Ascalu and the 18th 
lunar mansion (al-Qalb spelt Alcalu in 
several sources of the collection), 
between Argafalau and the 26th 
mansion (al-Fargh al-Awwal, Algarfa-
laul) and between Aluaten and the 28th 
mansion (BaÐn al-©ýt, Aluaten). As 
for Alchandreus, Juste is inclined to 
equate this name with a corruption of 
al-Kind÷ but, given the degree of 
Reviews 184 
creativity shown by the texts’ author, 
who invents names of scholars very 
similar to those of lunar mansions, I 
will repeat a hypothesis I made a few 
years ago when reviewing one of the 
papers published by Juste on the 
Alchandreana. Bearing in mind that 
one of the derivations of the corpus is 
the Liber Arcandam, very popular 
from the 16th c. onwards, I believe that 
Alchandreus may be a corruption of 
the Arkand, an Indian astronomical 
book known with this name in Arabic: 
the name, at least, circulated in al-
Andalus towards the middle of the 9th 
c. 
 David Juste’s volume contains a 
presentation of the books which form 
the corpus (pp. 29-98) and of which he 
has made a very careful critical edition 
(pp. 433-652; editorial criteria pp. 
391-431). They are: 1) Liber Alchan-
drei; 2) Epistola Argafalau ad Alexan-
drum; 3) Breviarium Alhandrei summi 
astrologi; 4) Quicumque nosse deside-
rat legem astrorum; 5) Proportiones 
competentes in astrorum industria; 6) 
In principio fecit Deus caelum et 
terram; 7) Benedictum nomen Domini 
and 8) a collection of Fragmenta 
Alchandreana (22 chapters extant in 
several MSS which do not appear in 
the other works). Of these Juste 
considers that 6) and 7) are “vulgar” 
texts consisting in translations or 
adaptations of Arabic originals, while 
1), 2), 3), 4) and 5) are more elaborate 
versions based on previous trans-
lations from the Arabic but which also 
use other sources. It is very difficult to 
establish the Arabic sources used by 
the authors of the collection: it is only 
clear that they derive from a milieu in 
which we find Sarraceni. Iudaei, 
Barbari, Romani/ Christiani and Melli 
(maw×l÷ ?)  (Benedictum, see pp. 79, 
609-610). Place names in the Iberian 
Peninsula (Corduba, Serragoza, Cisci-
tra?) appear in the Proportiones (pp.  
197, 556). Similarities with an Anda-
lus÷ source on the making of talismans 
related to the lunar mansions and 
dated towards the middle of the 10th c. 
(Ibn al-©×tim’s De imaginibus) have 
been underlined by Juste in the 
Benedictum (pp. 81-82). To this he 
adds the use of a Maghrib÷ alpha-
numerical system (abjad) (pp. 153-
154) and the Western names of the 
planets al-Muq×til (Saturn), al-A¬mar 
(Mars) and al-K×tib (Mercury) (pp. 75, 
222, 653-654), to which one could add 
names of zodiacal signs also common 
in al-Andalus: al-Kabsh (Aries) and 
al-Taw’am×n (Gemini) (pp. 655-656). 
All this points to an Andalus÷ source 
or group of sources circulating in 
Cordova towards the middle of the 
10th c. at a time when, under the 
conservative Caliphate of þAbd al-
Ra¬m×n III (912-961), astrology 
survived only in secret, and books like 
the Gh×yat al-¬ak÷m/ Picatrix (with a 
strong interest in lunar mansions) and 
the De imaginibus were written. The 
atmosphere of the period fits very well 
the non-mathematical character of the 
astrology represented in the Alchan-
dreana collection. This is not contra-
dicted by the fact that Juste has found 
a few references to Eastern astrolo-
gical sources: M×sh×’all×h’s (fl. 762-
809) Liber de interrogationibus, for 
example, is identified with the Brevia-
rium in one of the MSS (p. 50), while 
two MSS of the Proportiones  
Reviews 185
consider that this book is 
M×sh×’all×h’s Liber iudiciorum (p. 
60). As for actual sources and, apart 
from the Latin ones (Martianus Capel-
la, Excerpta Plinii, In quo signo verse-
tur Mars, computus treatises, p. 219), 
there are parallels with the Secretum 
secretorum, a Syriac medical compi-
lation, the Mandean Book of the 
Zodiac and the Book of Nativities 
attributed to Abý Maþshar (d. 886) 
(pp. 224-226). All this forms a body of 
information which was available in 
Cordova at that time, or in the 
Christian lands where the translation/ 
adaptation was made. 
 The origins and subsequent deve-
lopment of the collection (until the 
16th c.) are investigated by Juste in 
chapter 3 (“Histoire des Alchan-
dreana” pp. 219-294). Juste argues 
convincingly that it originated in 
Catalonia towards the end of the 10th 
c. before the “old collection” of texts 
on the astrolabe and other instruments 
was compiled. He refers to the 
analysis made by Bernard Bischoff of 
the language of In principio (a bad 
Latin contaminated by the influence of 
a Romance dialect which he places in 
Catalonia) (pp. 75-77). Bischoff’s 
examples do not seem very conclusive 
to me and I find a much stronger 
argument in Juste’s analysis of the 
Proportiones. This text is particularly 
interesting because it contains the only 
reference, in the whole corpus, to a 
translation from the Arabic (pp. 69, 
554): the author has not been able to 
find what he is going to explain 
(astrological predictions based on the 
vision of comets) in Christian or 
Hebrew sources, but in Arabic texts 
translated into Latin by the wisest 
master of the Arabs as he was 
instructing him. This book also 
contains a date: an example is given 
on the computation of planetary 
longitudes for year 4715 (although in 
the process of the calculation he uses 
4795 systematically) ab initio mundi. 
If the Jewish chronology (year of 
Creation 3761 B.C.) is used, this gives 
4715 – 3761 = 954, which fits neatly 
with what one might expect (pp. 69, 
535-537), since the oldest MS (Paris 
BNF 17868), containing five treatises 
of the Alchandreana, is dated towards 
the end of the 10th c. Besides, the 
Proportiones, a revision of the Bene-
dictum, and the Compilation of El 
Burgo de Osma (one of the MSS 
containing the Fragmenta) seem to 
have been written by the same author. 
They all use an uncommon vocabulary 
which apparently derives from the 
Glossaries compiled at the Monastery 
of Ripoll, and the style of this text 
coincides fully with the extant works 
of Miró Bonfill (d. 984), bishop of 
Gerona since 971 and correspondent 
of Gerbert of Aurillac who, in 984, 
asked him for a copy of the De 
multiplicatione et divisione numero-
rum written by a mysterious Joseph 
Sapiens. Miró Bonfill would, there-
fore, be the author of the Proportiones 
and the two other related texts. 
Besides, Juste considers that the 
traditional identification of the Liber 
de astrologia which Gerbert requested, 
also in 984, from its “translator” 
(translatum a te), Lupitus Barchino-
nensis (fl. 975-995), with one of the 
Latin texts on the astrolabe is 
unjustified and that a better hypothesis 
Reviews 186 
would be to identify it with the three 
first treatises of the Alchandreana 
collection (Liber Alchandrei, Epistola 
Argafalau and Breviarium Alhandrei), 
given the fact that the first, at least, of 
these books bears the title of Liber de 
astrologia. If this very reasonable 
hypothesis proved to be true, Lupitus 
would be the name of another of the 
authors of the collection (see pp. 249-
257). There are, therefore, at least two 
Christian scholars (Miró Bonfill and, 
perhaps, Lupitus), an Arab (who 
helped Miró with the translation) and, 
without any doubt, a Jewish collabor-
ator who, in Juste’s opinion, made a 
serious effort to hebraize the Arabic 
sources used by the compilers of the 
collection. This explains the appearan-
ce in it of the Hebrew alphabet used as 
an alphanumerical system and the 
Hebrew names of the planets, and 
zodiacal signs which we find, espe-
cially, in the Liber Alchandrei, but 
also in the Breviarium, Quicumque 
and Benedictum. 
 Chapter 2 (pp. 99-217) deals at 
length with the technical contents of 
the collection: periods of revolution of 
the planets (101-104), domiciles, 
exaltations and falls (104-105), 
planetary apogees (109-111), Thema 
mundi (111-112), astrological charac-
teristics of planets (112-119), zodiacal 
signs and triplicities (119-123), lunar 
mansions (123-126), houses of the 
horoscope identified with zodiacal 
signs (126-128), “Egyptian” terms 
(135-137), planetary and zodiacal 
hours (137-141), sign and planet of 
birth (141-147), numerical alphabets 
(147-155) and prognostications based 
on single elements, such as the sign or 
planet at birth, the planetary hour (for 
interrogations), the ascending sign at 
the moment of interrogation, the 
ascending triplicity, the position of the 
planets in the houses, the four 
quadrants or the triplicities, the Moon 
in the lunar mansions etc. (pp. 156-
217). The computation of the planet-
ary positions has an astronomical lo-
gic, as it uses the planetary periods of 
revolution and the number of years 
since the moment of the creation of the 
world, for which a horoscope (with the 
position of the planets in the signs) is 
supposed to be known (as a matter of 
fact, two different horoscopes are 
attested in our sources). The procedure 
appears in two variants which Juste 
calls “System A” and “System B” 
(which bear no relation whatsoever to 
the systems with the same denomina-
tion in Babylonian astronomy) and the 
pages dedicated to its study here (pp. 
105-109) are a summary of the most 
important paper published by the 
author himself in the Studies in the 
History of the Exact Sciences in 
Honour of David Pingree (Leiden-
Boston, 2004, pp. 181-222). The 
method explained by Juste gives a 
clear solution of a problem that 
worried me many years ago: how 
could astrologers working in al-
Andalus towards the beginning of the 
9th c. cast a horoscope at a time when 
no astronomical tables were available? 
In 1985 I suggested the same kind of 
solution as Juste but I was unable to 
examine the contemporary sources, as 
he has done now. Juste seems to have 
solved the problem quite definitively. 
 In many instances, however, the 
procedures explained in these texts to 
Reviews 187
determine the ascendant (and therefore 
the signs corresponding to the houses), 
the sign and planet of birth are 
independent of any astronomical con-
sideration and base themselves on 
numerological speculations. This is in 
spite of the fact that the system of 
zodiacal hours (pp. 140-141) contains 
the embryo of a vaguely approximate 
method to determine the ascendant and 
that the In principio (pp. 204-205, 579, 
599) seems to be aware of a more 
sophisticated kind of astronomy when 
it explains the stations and retrogradat-
ions of the superior planets as a 
function of their elongation from the 
Sun. This appears to be an instance of 
the use of a different kind of source 
from those that are standard in the 
Alchandreana. Juste also notes some 
instances (pp. 199-203) in which 
astrological predictions take into con-
sideration several predictive elements, 
something which bears witness to a 
more developed kind of astrology. 
 This excellent volume contains a 
careful description of the 71 extant 
MSS and a 16th c. edition which 
document the spread of the collection 
(pp. 297-390) and an important series 
of careful appendices which summar-
ize, in tables, the  spellings, in the 
different sources, of Arabic names of 
planets, zodiacal signs, lunar mansions 
and letters of the alphabet (pp. 653-
666); the Hebrew names of planets, 
signs and letters of the Hebrew 
alphabet (pp. 667-674); the numerical 
alphabets (pp. 675-682) and the list of 
subjects in the Alchandreana. The 
book ends with a list of sources and 
bibliography (pp. 687-710) and index-
es of Latin technical terms (pp. 711-
714), Latin proper names (pp. 715-
716), a general index of names and 
titles of works (pp. 717-722) and 
another of MSS (pp. 723-726). To 
conclude: this is a brilliant book on a 
subject which, at least in my opinion, 
is important. 
 
        Julio Samsó 
 
 
 Roshdi Rashed, Les mathématiques 
infinitésimales du IXe au XIe siècle. 
Volume V: Ibn al-Haytham, Astro-
nomie, Géométrie sphérique et tri-
gonométrie. Al-Furq×n, Islamic 
Heritage Foundation. London, 
1427/2006. XIV + 972 + V (Arabic 
summary of the introduction) pp. 
 
In 1996, Rashed began this 
impressive collection of editions, 
French translations and thorough 
studies of Arabic mathematical texts 
related to infinitesimal mathematics 
which has now reached its fifth 
volume. Most, if not all, of the texts 
edited in vols. II-V are due to Ibn al-
Haytham and make an enormous 
contribution to our knowledge of the 
mathematical aspects of his work. 
Rashed here adds a collection of four 
of Ibn al-Haytham’s works dealing 
with mathematical astronomy and in 
which infinitesimal geometry is used. 
This is an important contribution given 
the limited number of Ibn al-
Haytham’s astronomical books that 
have, so far, received due attention. 
Among other examples, I will only 
mention Sabra and Shehaby’s edition 
of the Shukýk (1971), Tzvi Langer-
mann’s F÷ hay’at al-þ×lam (1990, see 


David Juste, Les Alchandreana primitifs. Étude sur les plus anciens traités astrologiques latins d’origine arabe (Xe siècle).

Abstract

Similar works

Full text

Available Versions

Revistes Catalanes amb Accés Obert